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Deleting high level characters... yea or nay?


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Here is a link to what the birthday gifts actually are:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_GiftIf you ask me, none of it is worth keeping a character around you don't want. And it certainly isn't worth 800 gold. Minis, dyes... BAH! Even the one day %100 boost to magic find doesn't seem special enough to waste a character slot for a whole year (let alone 6 years). Geesh!

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It depends mostly on how much value you take in birthday gifts (and how much 800 gems or their equivalent gold or money they are to you). Year 4, 5 and 6 gifts have been coming with unique skins which are unattainable otherwise as well as progressively more account bound dyes. Future birthday gifts could follow a similar pattern.

If those are of absolutely no interest to you, you can delete a character. I would still keep around at least 1 max birthday character for the one time yearly rewards and titles.

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Thanks for the info! Honestly, it probably wouldn't be such an issue if we could race change, but I completely understand why that isn't possible (personal story and all).

As much as I get GW2 having a gem store and don't have a problem with it, I wish you could buy certain things using in-game gold, not "convert in-game gold to gems." I can't believe you have to spend either a stupid amount of gold doing a conversion or real-world dollars just to change your characters appearance (make-over kits). You could do that in WoW at the barbershop as often as you like for like 40 in-game gold (to change skin color, face, hair, hair color), which probably is like 10 silver in GW2 economy. Probably one of my only complaints so far with GW2.

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@"SilverArrowsMP.2957" said:Thanks for the info! Honestly, it probably wouldn't be such an issue if we could race change, but I completely understand why that isn't possible (personal story and all).

As much as I get GW2 having a gem store and don't have a problem with it, I wish you could buy certain things using in-game gold, not "convert in-game gold to gems." I can't believe you have to spend either a stupid amount of gold doing a conversion or real-world dollars just to change your characters appearance (make-over kits). You could do that in WoW at the barbershop as often as you like for like 40 in-game gold (to change skin color, face, hair, hair color), which probably is like 10 silver in GW2 economy. Probably one of my only complaints so far with GW2.

Wrong. You can do that in WoW for $15 a month every month that you play that game. That's, let's see, $180 per year. Let's be real here. WoW not only charges for expansions, but it also changes a monthly fee and still has a cash shop. Why not compare this to other free to play games, instead of a subscription one?

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Technically you can play wow for "free" via the game time tokens bought from their trade post. (Correct me if I am wrong, haven't played for ages)

On topic. You missed the character slot sales few days ago. :/ I never delete characters I played. Who knows when I might want to come back to them. Consider them retired adventurers you can log in once in a while and feel the nostalgia. Also char slot is just 10€.

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I think it's a bit more situational than simply 'yes it's always ok to delete high level characters' or 'no you should always keep them'. There's a big difference between someone who quit 4 years ago and just returned considering deleting their first character to start fresh and a current player with 3 or 4 level 80s roughly the same age wanting to delete one of them to free up a slot.

It's really up to each person to decide what to do. It's definitely worth considering the birthday gifts (especially if this is one of your oldest characters) but I agree that the regular gifts aren't worth buying a new character slot for.

(Luckily I've never wanted to delete any of my 4 original characters - I spend most of the betas getting them right so I wouldn't do that - but I have deleted other high level or old characters, because I wanted to remake them or free the slot up.)

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Look at it this way, an unused character like that makes a great mule, which is cheaper than a bank slot tab (though not as convenient)

Example:Bank Slot Tab - 600gems - 30 additional storage slotsCharacter Mule - 800gems - 92 additional storage slots (assuming 4x 18 slot bags)and you get to keep those Birthday rewards.

Also, if you choose to level that character you can earn 3 free BL keys from the personal story chapters 10, 40 and 60, a 375 Gem value!

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In addition to what else has been said, I would also point out that parking an alt at a farm allows for a quick and easy farm simply by switching characters. It only takes about 1 minute to farm, allowing you to build up a quantity of materials useful for crafting, guild hall improvements, and/or selling on the Black Lion Trading Post.

For example, I park most of my alts at the Jaka Itzel flax farm.

The same could be done with the tree farm in Malchor's Leap.

If you have crafted Kudzu and unlocked the garden in Diedre's Steps, parking an alt there allows for easy daily farming.

There are plenty of farms, just figure out which would be most beneficial to you and park an alt there.

You could also park an alt at the end of a jumping puzzle and switch to that alt when that jumping puzzle is a Daily. if your alt is a Mesmer, you could practice porting and helping other players in-game.

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I've yet to meet anyone in the game who has substantially regretted having an extra character; I have met many, many, many people who have regretted deleting older characters.

Accordingly, I can't think of any situation in which I would recommend deleting a character. In the long run, it's more economical to start over using a fresh slot. Birthday gifts, extra mule storage, parking at a daily chest are substantive benefits. I even encourage people to buy a name change contract, allowing you the opportunity to port the character's appellation to the new toon, even though it's double the cost.

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I've deleted several. To me it comes down to whether I'll actually use it again. If I'm just setting it aside for the moment, why not keep it and get the gifts? But if I'm certain I have no interest in playing it again, then I'll delete.One thing to consider is that a total makeover kit can be almost equivalent to making a new character (same race/profession of course). If a total overhaul of the look of the toon might revitalise my interest in playing it, I might just do that.

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@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:I've yet to meet anyone in the game who has substantially regretted having an extra character; I have met many, many, many people who have regretted deleting older characters.

Accordingly, I can't think of any situation in which I would recommend deleting a character. In the long run, it's more economical to start over using a fresh slot. Birthday gifts, extra mule storage, parking at a daily chest are substantive benefits. I even encourage people to buy a name change contract, allowing you the opportunity to port the character's appellation to the new toon, even though it's double the cost.

I'd regret keeping the older and/or high level characters I've deleted. Mainly because then I'd be unable to re-use the name for an 'improved' version of the same character but also because I'd find it sad to see a character who used to be one of my main ones reduced to a mule or farmer trapped in one spot in the world forever more. Also I'm using all 13 of my character slots and not keen on paying for even more without a good reason. (Which also means I have enough characters that I don't really need mules, the odd bits which I don't want to keep in the bank can be shared between them without taking up too much space on one character, and I'm not worried about getting even more birthday gifts.) And I don't really have time to play all the ones I've got.

Having said that deleting a character isn't a decision I make lightly. Usually it's something I decide before I've even made them - I create them to fulfil a specific purpose and I know from the start I'm going to delete them when that's done. (Especially with one of my current temps - I'm doing the White Gear Challenge where you have to delete them if they die.) When I've deleted a character I was intending to keep I don't do anything until I've got the whole plan worked out - who I'm deleting, what I'm doing with the name (if I want to keep it) who I'm making to replace them etc. and I'm confident the end result will definitely be better than what I've got now.

There's at least 3 characters I deleted and later re-made, but with different professions so keeping them wasn't an option, and one who started off as a name/concept for a 'key runner' or other random low level alt who became one of my permanent characters, but even then I don't regret deleting the originals because what I ended up with is better (with key runner - now my revenant - its because I actually took care with making her look right in the character creator once I knew I'd be keeping her).

(That's the other issue for me - I don't need more excuses to keep characters. Last night I had to talk myself out of buying the white feather wings and making a character to use them...because I don't have a suitable character but I do have an amazing character concept, but it would be completely redundant for me. I've got at least two or three other ideas for characters I really like but have no use for.)

That's what I meant by it being very situational. I can sort my characters into one's I'd never delete no matter what (but therefore won't stop playing), ones I would delete with a good reason and ones I am planning to delete sooner or later, but it's such complicated reasoning, some of it highly subjective, that I'm not sure it would make sense to anyone else.

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@Vayne.8563 said:

@"SilverArrowsMP.2957" said:Thanks for the info! Honestly, it probably wouldn't be such an issue if we could race change, but I completely understand why that isn't possible (personal story and all).

As much as I get GW2 having a gem store and don't have a problem with it, I wish you could buy certain things using in-game gold, not "convert in-game gold to gems." I can't believe you have to spend either a stupid amount of gold doing a conversion or real-world dollars just to change your characters appearance (make-over kits). You could do that in WoW at the barbershop as often as you like for like 40 in-game gold (to change skin color, face, hair, hair color), which probably is like 10 silver in GW2 economy. Probably one of my only complaints so far with GW2.

Wrong. You can do that in WoW for $15 a month every month that you play that game. That's, let's see, $180 per year. Let's be real here. WoW not only charges for expansions, but it also changes a monthly fee and still has a cash shop. Why not compare this to other free to play games, instead of a subscription one?

I used that as a comparison for a system, for another means of doing something, not comparing the games themselves.

Secondly, in WoW, I could change my appearance 5,000 times a month, hell, a day for that matter, if I wanted to. What is the cost of 5000 make-over kits? Guarantee it's way more than $180. Yes, that's an extreme example, but the point remains.

I have subbed to WoW, FFXIV, and ESO at points in time, and never regretted it. Sometimes I think you get more value for money in those scenarios, sometimes not. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against supporting Anet. I have both expacs, bought multiple character expansion slots, bank tabs, bag tabs, etc. But something as basic as changing the appearance of your toon costing real money is something I find ridiculous. And that applies to all MMO's that do it, not just GW2.

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@SilverArrowsMP.2957 said:

@SilverArrowsMP.2957 said:Thanks for the info! Honestly, it probably wouldn't be such an issue if we could race change, but I completely understand why that isn't possible (personal story and all).

As much as I get GW2 having a gem store and don't have a problem with it, I wish you could buy certain things using in-game gold, not "convert in-game gold to gems." I can't believe you have to spend either a stupid amount of gold doing a conversion or real-world dollars just to change your characters appearance (make-over kits). You could do that in WoW at the barbershop as often as you like for like 40 in-game gold (to change skin color, face, hair, hair color), which probably is like 10 silver in GW2 economy. Probably one of my only complaints so far with GW2.

Wrong. You can do that in WoW for $15 a month every month that you play that game. That's, let's see, $180 per year. Let's be real here. WoW not only charges for expansions, but it also changes a monthly fee and still has a cash shop. Why not compare this to other free to play games, instead of a subscription one?

I used that as a comparison for a system, for another means of doing something, not comparing the games themselves.

Secondly, in WoW, I could change my appearance 5,000 times a month, hell, a day for that matter, if I wanted to. What is the cost of 5000 make-over kits? Guarantee it's way more than $180. Yes, that's an extreme example, but the point remains.

I have subbed to WoW, FFXIV, and ESO at points in time, and never regretted it. Sometimes I think you get more value for money in those scenarios, sometimes not. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against supporting Anet. I have both expacs, bought multiple character expansion slots, bank tabs, bag tabs, etc. But something as basic as changing the appearance of your toon costing real money is something I find ridiculous. And that applies to
all
MMO's that do it, not just GW2.

Doesn't change a word I've said. The fact that you think comparing a sub game to what's available free in a buy to play game is the problem and it IS a problem. Games have to be funded. This game is funded by voluntary purchases which have to have some value. Bringing up a sub game, without bringing up the sub is just pointless, because it's not the same payment model so the comparison is unfair.

You may be happy paying a sub. I guarantee you a percentage of the playerbase would not be happy pay a sub, probably a significant percentage. This game is funded by the cash shop. If we made it so everything you could get in WOW you could get for $15 a month, this game would not exist. I don't suppose you could do ANY appearance changes if the game wasn't here at all.

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Do your weekly key farm and you will get make over kits from the black lion chest. I have 4 complete makeover kits, and 2 or 3 hair kits.

If you can't stand a character, delete it and reroll. I have an asuran mesmer that I detest. The only reason I still have him is because I haven't decided on a new name yet. So he's sat at the potato farm in Metrica and farmed potatos. From level 11 all the way to 31. Someday I will find a new name that I like for a mes and reroll him.

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On pre-launch I reserved all the toon names, played GW2 until first 2 weeks after launch because crappy PC was constantly overheating.

after coming came back from almost 3 years of haitus, revisted all my toons and wasnt happy with the looks of most of my toons, so I deleted (7 toons) and recreated them all except 1.

I totally regretted that move, could have had all 8 of my original toons receiving 7th birthday presents this year, but only 1 will :disappointed_relieved:

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A couple of things that don't seem to have been mentioned yet:

  • Your first character to reach each birthday gets more presents than any subsequent ones, since on top of the usual gifts they also get some one-time gifts. These include things that you can't get from any other sources (e.g. Luminous weapons and armour, cultural backpacks). So your oldest character is more valuable than the others from the point of view of birthday presents (assuming there's any chance of you wanting those things).
  • We don't know what the 7th and subsequent birthday presents are going to be yet - so you might want to keep at least one character (probably your oldest) just in case there are any in the future that you end up wanting.
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If you know, 100%, you will not play the character if you merely recreated the profession as a different race, then delete the character.It is worth keeping if the character in question is the oldest one on your account, purely for the Account Bound Birthday reward, you can view the one-time rewards here and get an idea of upcoming 7-year+ rewards.

I've deleted and remade my necromancer 4 times, the original one was the oldest on my account.I've also deleted a character that would have been 6 this year, who had a 500 crafting profession, and 100% World completion.I don't regret either of these decisions, and I've got 9 permanent characters that I really love now.

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@Vayne.8563 said:Doesn't change a word I've said. The fact that you think comparing a sub game to what's available free in a buy to play game is the problem and it IS a problem. Games have to be funded. This game is funded by voluntary purchases which have to have some value. Bringing up a sub game, without bringing up the sub is just pointless, because it's not the same payment model so the comparison is unfair.

You may be happy paying a sub. I guarantee you a percentage of the playerbase would not be happy pay a sub, probably a significant percentage. This game is funded by the cash shop. If we made it so everything you could get in WOW you could get for $15 a month, this game would not exist. I don't suppose you could do ANY appearance changes if the game wasn't here at all.

Are you even reading my comments?? I am talking about ONE thing... appearance changes, and you are acting like making that ONE thing doable with in-game gold will somehow bankrupt ArenaNet. It's extremely sad if you have such little faith in the quality of content this game provides that making one change like that would end its lifespan. I am not asking for free bank tabs or bag slots or character slots or minis or skins or indestructible gathering tools or dye packs or the God knows how many other things are sold in the cash shop!!!

My OP was about whether or not to delete characters and all you have managed to do is pick out the one thing I said (not in the OP) I dislike about ALL MMO's and go on some tangent about how I am apparently clueless as to how F2P (or B2P is you have the expacs) games make money. You have contributed absolutely nothing to what this discussion was created for.

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@"Tommo Chocolate.5870" said:A couple of things that don't seem to have been mentioned yet:

  • Your first character to reach each birthday gets more presents than any subsequent ones, since on top of the usual gifts they also get some one-time gifts. These include things that you can't get from any other sources (e.g. Luminous weapons and armour, cultural backpacks). So your oldest character is more valuable than the others from the point of view of birthday presents (assuming there's any chance of you wanting those things).
  • We don't know what the 7th and subsequent birthday presents are going to be yet - so you might want to keep at least one character (probably your oldest) just in case there are any in the future that you end up wanting.

Is there a way I can tell how "old" a character is (not hours played) so I know which one of mine is the oldest??

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@SilverArrowsMP.2957 said:

@"Tommo Chocolate.5870" said:A couple of things that don't seem to have been mentioned yet:
  • Your first character to reach each birthday gets more presents than any subsequent ones, since on top of the usual gifts they also get some one-time gifts. These include things that you can't get from any other sources (e.g. Luminous weapons and armour, cultural backpacks). So your oldest character is more valuable than the others from the point of view of birthday presents (assuming there's any chance of you wanting those things).
  • We don't know what the 7th and subsequent birthday presents are going to be yet - so you might want to keep at least one character (probably your oldest) just in case there are any in the future that you end up wanting.

Is there a way I can tell how "old" a character is (not hours played) so I know which one of mine is the oldest??

I think if you type /age in chat it will tell you how many days old the current character and the account are.

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@SilverArrowsMP.2957 said:Are you even reading my comments?? I am talking about ONE thing... appearance changes, and you are acting like making that ONE thing doable with in-game gold will somehow bankrupt ArenaNet. It's extremely sad if you have such little faith in the quality of content this game provides that making one change like that would end its lifespan. I am not asking for free bank tabs or bag slots or character slots or minis or skins or indestructible gathering tools or dye packs or the God knows how many other things are sold in the cash shop!!!

Since you compared the in-game cost of a subscription game to a similar feature in a non-sub game, it's fair to point out that (a) the comparison wasn't apples to apples, (b) it's a misunderstanding of the business models, and © it might not even be as onerous as stated.

To have a 10-silver feature (your estimate) in WoW, people pay $180/year, regardless of how often it's used. In contrast, the 130 gold makeover kit in GW2 is handed out for free (limited quantities, via login rewards etc) and no one has to pay unless they want it.

WoW earns $180/year from every subscriber, whereas GW2 only earns from people who buy gems (regardless of how they are used). Therefore, removing any of the dozens of reasons to buy gems hurts its bottom line.

My OP was about whether or not to delete charactersIt was. So why did you digress the discussion to talk about something else?

all you have managed to do is pick out the one thing I said (not in the OP) I dislike about ALL MMO's and go on some tangent about how I am apparently clueless as to how F2P (or B2P is you have the expacs) games make money.You based an entire post on glossing over key differences between B2P and subscription-funded games. Why is it surprising that someone chose to clarify those differences?

You have contributed absolutely nothing to what this discussion was created for.Again, you chose to bring up a point irrelevant to your own stated topic. And you've chosen repeatedly to defend that digression.

If you didn't want to start a discussion about how games are funded, why did you compare costs in WoW (a sub game) to costs in GW2?

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